Vienna!

What a great, but tiring, couple of days. I have been exhausted since got here, but it didntä help that I only got three hours of sleep the night before leaving for Vienna.

We left the house at 4:45 am on Monday so that we could drop off Peggy at the Linz airport for her am flight back to Connecticut. From Linz it then took about 2.5 hours to drive into Vienna. Aunt Gerry offered to let me drive partway, and I jumped at the opportunity to drive the autobahn. We stopped at a "rastastation," which are much more beautiful and clean compared to the ones along the NJ turnpike. We had some breakfast, inlcuding bottomless coffee, something Aunt Gerry said she'd never seen before in Austria. Also, with rolls in Austrian restaurants, you are charged by how many are gone from the basket, meaning that the untouched ones are saved for the next customers, which is a pretty progessive idea since then no food is going to waste.

After leaving there I realy couldn't stay awake and was starting to feel sick, actually. The car ride into Vienna I felt sort of faint, and then when we came up from the parking garage to teh light, I started to feel really dizzy. I think that all the travelling we'd done in the past few days was finally catching up to me, and all that bottomless coffee sloshing inside me was not going to negate my backwards sleep schedule. So after a moment of collecting myself again, we made it into the hotel.

Hotel Fürstenhof is a gorgeous old hotel. There is a traditional red carpet rolling down the stairs to greet visitors, and the receptionist sits behind a tall counter next to all the room keys he guards. Taking the elevator was not much of an option because it's soooo small. But it was one of my favorite things to do there because you had to swing open a heavy glass door before sliding the wooden one back. It also was a smooth ride, with no bouncy stomach movements, so I didnät feel too queasy.

Our hotel room, now I regret not taking a picture, it was recently redone so that there was a bathroom inside the room, not typical of old hotels. So the bathroom had gorgeous tile and plent of tiny lights. There are still some pictures I have yet to take of Austrian architecture and home decorating because it's so different from anything I've ever seen.

After we recooped for a few minutes we scooted over on this monorail type system over to the Scholbrunn Palace.

Here's the monorail car, it reminded me of Disney.


Mom and Marilyn on the metrorail, wondering what they have to do with our tickets. It turns out zyou don't have to do anything, other than hold on to them in case a conductor or authority figure asked to see it.


This the front facade of the Scholbrunn Palace. Both the family of Maria Theresa (mother of Maria Antoinette) and the family of Franz Josef held residencies at this palace.




Inside the Yellow Room, children could put on dresses reconstructed to match the ones Maria Theresa's daughters wore.
Outside in the garden of the Scholbrunn palace. I really wasn't supposed to take pictures inside the palace. Mostly what we saw were how the two families had lived in the palace. I learned about the unaffectionate wife of Franz Josef, Elisabeth aka Sissi. (terrible nickname)

If it seems like my entries are losing speed, it's because I'm getting tired and cranky again, mostly because blogspot takes such a long time to upload pictures.

In the afternoon we took a tram/rail ride around the city and Aunt Gerry pointed out the town hall, an art museum, and the current president's residence (she could tell that he was home because the Austrian flag was raised)

We walked around alot and by this time my whole body was aching from exhaustion. I was really really bitter and slightly regret it now because I think I could have taken a better effort at sightseeing and enjoying the company I was in. But anyway. We walked into St. Stephen's Cathedral, which was incredibly dark inside and very baroque. It reminded me of the inside of Notre Dame, but I actually like the outside of this one better, because it had a more interesting look: it's nestled between many more buildings in Vienna, and also looks different from almost any angle you choose.

We had lunch at Weinerwald, a chain restaurant actually known for its chicken, not weiners. We ate outside and peoplewatched. Then we headed back to teh hotel, not without stopping for ice cream. So far everyday has included a trip to an ice cream store. This time I had black cherry! :)

After a nice two hour nap, which we all desperately needed, we got the main event, the Mozart concert. It took place in this hall, the Musikvierin Golden Hall.

The music was outstanding, and also had some opera accompaniments. Every performer was dressed in 18th century costume, right down to the white wigs. All the members of the orchestra were male, with the exception of some singers and a violin soloist.

















The lovely ladies on the tram, following the concert.




On our way through the subway were stores and also beautiful artwork. I really like one system of artwork that blurred solar/cosmic life with aquatic nature. Above is the sun.

The next morning we woke up earlier than we expected and got on the road right after a nice breakfast at the hotel. The bread here is sooo good. I could eat salt sticks with everything.

We made our ride out to Dürnstein smoothly, with the help of Susie, the talking map/guide in Aunt Gerry's car. She's a trip. Above is a wreath or maybe dream catcher hanging outside a restaurant. The act of hanging it symoblizes that tehy are currently selling their best fresh wine. Businesses in this wine region take turns, and the signs signify who's selling at that time.
Here is a picture of some hills across the Danube River. You can also make out the rows of grapes growing there, towards the right of the photo.
Right away I found these beautiful flowers crawling a building's side. They remind me of loose skeins of wool. I'll try to google it later, or look it up in gardening book because I'd like to try growing them some time.
I found a pretty alley!
This is the last frivolous picture, I promise. Here's a gumball machine selling gems for one Euro each. From a distance it looks like an upright pill.
This walkway was typical of the entire city: it's small and narrow and filled with bikers. We met a girl from Australia biking from Salzburg to Vienna (pretty much cross the country). The town diverts the traffic by way of a tunnel running under the mountain, so there were not many cars in the main part of the tiny town. Above the town is the castle that imprisoned the english king Richard Lionheart during the 12th century.

This part of the city is most famous for its blue church, the Stift Dürnstein. Outside it was a beautiful statue of a saint with a dog in her arms.

Here is the church.
This barrel is asking for donations. The Wachau region which Dürnstein is a part of is known for its wine.
Inside there was a corpse inside a glass case. Aunt Gerry said that after a dead saint was buried, the remains would be reexamined after a period of time. If the remains were still in tact, this proved that the person indeed was truly saint and would be put on adorned with jewels and put on display in the church.

This is one of the best altars I have seen so far. I enjoy this church because of its differences from the others I have seen so far: the blue tower outside, the bright orange glow from the center, and also all the paintings that line the walls in contrast with the less decorated ceiling.
I kept finding more things that cracked me up! Here's a wine tree, and also Aunt Gerry reflected in the window. :)
This was etched in a wall. I'm not sure what it's supposed to suggest, since it looks like a divine person, also dressed up in battle wear, and also having hooves.


There are two types of cherry trees in Austria, sweet ones and sour ones. we taste tested, and the answer is sour.
Next we drove to the city of Melk. We ate a great pizza lunch, and in Austria they cut it up and eat it, since the crust is soft and thin, and they order 1 pizza per person. Then we moved onto the HUGE monastary, Stift Melk. It has been under reconstruction for almost 30 years now.
The monastary had to make up some extra money so they started charging admission and offering a tour. They recently updated the tour in 2003 with some rooms containing some permanent and interesting artifacts from the building that they could combine with a commentary on teh history of the place. It also functions as a school, and our tour guide was a recent graduate of the school, and was fluent in three languages. Here is a picture of a room suited to fit the theme of The Age of Reason. The light peeking through the window is to represent Enlightenment (cheesy but it gets better) and the stark walls and small amount of candles represented seriousness. The coffin above was a replica of one used to bury a person, then afterwards it would slide the corpse out from a trick door in the bottom, and then reused.
This piece of artwork was outside the catwalk between the library and the golden hall. The artist had many sculptures all over, but I realy liked how cute this foot stood on the tip of its toe. This picture is taken from above, on catwalk.

Here in the golden room is a picture of the windows and ceiling. Maria Theresa would come here to visit, bringing over 300 servants! In this room she dined. Coming from those butterfly like windows would be music from an orchestra playing on the floor above. The ceiling is also a trick ceiling, painted with an illusion to make it seem taller than it really was. This can be seen in how the painted columns appear, in the center of the room, straight, but when you're on the sides, you can tell that they are actually curving with the ceiling.
Here is a treasure chest the monks would fill, if it were a time of war. It has 14 locks on it, all apparently able to be opened with the same one key.

This is a picture of the painted dome in the church. Frescos line the entirity of the ceiling here.
In the library, gold statues stand at either side of the two doors. This one represents philosophy. The other three are law, medecine, and I think mathematics (?). The books are arranged to fall equally under these categories around the four walls of the room. The building contains more than 100,000 books, and has 14 libraries, this one being the largest.
This is a staircase in the second library we walked through. This staircase is the only way possible to connect to the other libraries.


Back outdoors, this is the same statue of the foot I liked, but from a ground view. The catwalk frames the picture, and the mountains and the distant Danube River sit in the distance.

After we got back home, we had a large leftovers dinner outside again, as this is Marilyn and Grandpa Bernie's last night in Austria. Tomorrow we see them off early in the morning, and then Aunt Gerry and I are going out for a surprise that you will have to check back on tomorrow. :) Goodnight.